The Star Inn

A Michelin-starred restaurant-with-rooms with chocolate-box, thatched-pub looks and a bucolic farming-village location. Bedrooms, across the road, have a comfortable, hunting-lodge style and a house-party atmosphere.

Location

9/10

At one end of a sprawling farming village - dog-leg main street, duck-pond, two churches, two (smart) hotels, cricket ground - that sits between the North York Moors and the Howardian Hills, it's not really on the road to anywhere, which is its charm. Walk through the village and you'll meet chickens, peacocks, rabbits and tractors. Helmsley, with its delis, tea-rooms, Castle and Walled Garden, is a five-minute drive; Rievaulx Abbey 15 minutes and you can be in Pickering (steam railway) or on top of the moors within 20 minutes.

Style and Character

9/10

The late-medieval, thatched pub is partly as you would expect - flagged floor, low beams - but opens into two smart yet comfortable dining rooms. Bedrooms are across the road in converted farm buildings (Cross Lodge House), all soft grey stone and hanging baskets outside, exposed beams and creamy-plaster inside. The House has a comfortably cluttered hunting-lodge-cum-ski-chalet style with plenty of squashy sofas, mounted antlers and warm woods. Walls are crammed with framed cartoons, and hunting and foodie pictures while rustic artefacts and fat white candles create a relaxed feel.

Service and Facilities

9/10

Within Cross Lodge House there's a large sitting-room with wood-burner and honesty bar - plus a complimentary afternoon-tea of cakes, and cheese and biscuits - while outside there's a gravel terrace for drinks, and breakfast on warmer days. The hotel's free-ranging hens and cockerels pad around here, too. Behind the pub, there's another south-facing terrace-garden with tables plus a delightful kitchen garden. There's a secure gun-room (shooting parties popular in season) and bike storage plus walking routes and maps are available. Dogs welcome, £30. Most staff are from the area, and are young, bright and adept at creating a relaxed atmosphere.

Parking

Restaurant

Bar

Laundry

Room service

Wi-Fi

Rooms

9/10

The lodge/chalet style continues in the nine bedrooms with their comfortable mix of plaids and faded florals, rustic furniture and bold feature wallpapers, exposed beams and faux-fur throws. Colours are warm and heathery while bathrooms are dark and masculine with slate floors and sauna-style, wooden-clad walls. Each has a quirky feature: perhaps a pool table, piano or bath with a countryside view. Four have private entrances while all have cute treats of chocolate bars, home-made biscuits and Yorkshire crisps.

Food and Drink

10/10

Whitby-born chef-owner Andrew Pern was one of the first champions of local sourcing - and why wouldn’t you be, he says, with his ‘back garden’: moorland game and pasture-fed meat, coastal fish, Yorkshire Wolds’ fruit and vegetables… He now has a huge kitchen garden at the back of the pub. His menus are punchy, robust yet skilfully balanced and as much about texture as taste: crab stick with seashore vegetables and avocado ice, perhaps followed by roasted lamb chop with truffled faggot or honey-roasted duck with tea-poached quail’s egg. There’s an element of fun, too - a beer-and-cider-menu to match the Tasting Menu - while black-pudding bread is always available.

Wines are wide-ranging and not ludicrously priced - plenty under £30; around 20 by the glass. Breakfast, around a King Arthur’s-size table, is a feast, from unpasteurised cheeses, smoked salmon and home-made granola to bacon butties, creamed mushrooms in truffle oil and a stonking ‘full Yorkshire’.

Value for Money

8/10

Double rooms from £150, breakfast included. Free Wi-Fi.

Access for guests with disabilities?

Ramp access to ground-floor rooms but no adapted bathrooms. Bar and restaurant accessible.